No Jury Yet For Taco Bell Killers

DAYTONA BEACH — Jury selection in the resentencing trial of Jeff and Anthony Farina, charged with first-degree murder in the death of a Taco Bell manager, continued at a slow crawl Tuesday.

At least two panels of prospective jurors were interviewed to determine whether the Farina brothers should receive the death penalty or life in prison.

Jury selection is expected to resume at 9 a.m. today before Circuit Judge C. McFerrin Smith at the Justice Center in Daytona Beach.

The brothers' death sentences were overturned in 1996 by the Florida Supreme Court because the trial judge mistakenly allowed prosecutors to dismiss a potential juror who expressed mixed feelings about the death penalty.

Instead, the woman should have been allowed to serve, the court decided.

Michelle Van Ness, a 17-year-old student at Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona, died from a gunshot wound to the head the day after the brothers robbed the eatery about 2 a.m. May 9, 1992.

Three of her co-workers suffered bullet and stab wounds but survived. The brothers herded the workers into a walk-in cooler during the robbery.

Jeff Farina, who was 16 at the time, shot Derek Mason in the face, Gary Robinson in the chest, then Van Ness. When he pulled the trigger to shoot Kimberly Gordon, the gun misfired.

That's when Anthony Farina, then 19, handed his brother a knife and held her head.

Jeff Farina stabbed Gordon in the back.

Assistant Public Defender Larry Henderson, who is representing Jeff Farina, and attorney Bill Hathaway, who is representing Anthony Farina, are expected to argue the Farinas should not be sentenced to die because the brothers suffered abusive childhoods.

During jury selection, the attorneys asked prospective jurors whether anyone close to them had been abused.

They also asked for their thoughts on the importance of parental guidance.

State Attorney John Tanner, who prosecuted the case in 1992 and won the death penalties, has returned to the courtroom along with three other prosecutors trying to put the men back on death row.